Wound Dressing Market Insights

Industry Insights into the Wound Dressings Market

Published On : Jul 28, 2014

Wound Dressings Market: Summary

The wound dressings market primarily deals with the treatment of injuries and wounds. A wound is an injury caused to a body tissue. It is often due to severe accidents, or physical activities including sports. Chronic diseases such as peripheral vascular diseases and diabetes are also becoming increasingly common among the aging population. Chronic wound formation and ulcer is a common consequence of these diseases. Wound dressings are utilized to treat such ailments, cover the wounds, and prevent microbial infection (scattering of necrosis) from spreading in the tissue. The healthcare companies specializing in addressing such medical issues have the potential to provide suitable medical products to improve healing of wounds in a shorter duration.

The healthcare industry’s drive to invent cost-effective and efficient wound healing techniques, while saving on treatment and labor costs is propelling the growth of the wound dressings market. Globally, the wound dressings market is all about preventing wound infections, reducing pain, and protecting the injured tissues. In addition, a brand image in a medical product also plays a significant role as consumers are more concerned about the brand and quality of the product in the market. This gives a tough competition for all the new entrants entering into the healthcare industry.

Patients with wounds have pain as the most common suffering. Wounds always hurt and the degree of its severity vary with the location, nature, and rigorousness of the injury in the body. While burns like cuts, scrapes, and blisters are unpleasantly painful, a puncture wound, on the contrary may hurt less. Nevertheless, wound-related pains are highly subjective and occur to be extremely distressing for both clinicians, as well as patients. It has multiple causes and is often managed ineffectively.

Market Segmentations

Depending on the techniques to cover the wounds, the wound dressings market is based on two major categories namely; traditional wound dressings techniques and advanced wound dressings techniques. Albeit the traditional wound dressings segment is expected to maintain its trend in the future due to its low cost methods, the market for wound dressings is favorably inclined more towards advanced wound dressings techniques. This is due to the rapid and advanced healing techniques it offers.

Traditional Wound Care Market

Traditional wound care encompasses products such as, sutures, sponges conforming bandages, non-adherent bandages, tissue sealants, surgical cotton swabs, gauze-based tape dressings such as woven and non-woven sponges, and ABD pads – all of which still accounts for over 50% total shares of wound care market. This section of the global wound dressings market also includes emerging and advanced technologies such as collagen, alginates, films, foam dressings, hydrocolloids and hydrogels.

Advanced Wound Care Market

The traditional gauze tapes, pads and non-adherent dressings which were earlier used as the basic wound coverings to dress acute and chronic wounds are now replaced with transparent films and hydrocolloids materials. Today, the advanced wound dressings market includes gels, foams, hydrocolloids, and alginates that allow patients and healthcare professionals to control moisture at the wound surface and reduce the frequency of dressing time.

Market Overview – by Market Shares & Regional Analysis

As the aging population is expected to experience a growing predominance of chronic wounds such as venous status ulcers, diabetes, or pressure ulcers, the multi-billion dollar wound dressings market will grow tremendously with robust demand for medical facilities. Some of the major drivers expected to shape the wound dressings market in the years to come include the introduction of advanced wound dressing technologies, aging population, and widespread clinical acceptance of wound bed preparation techniques.

In 2011, the global wound dressings market was valued at approximately USD 12.8 billion. Over the forecast period, sales are expected to reach USD 21.6 billion by 2018 increasing at a CAGR of 7.8% from 2012 to 2018. Worldwide, healthcare practitioners and medical facilities are focusing on reducing the costs of the treatments treating chronic wounds.

More than 60% of the global activities in the wound dressings market are seen in the U.S. and Europe regions. Asia-Pacific is the next upcoming wound dressings market, especially due to emerging economies of India, Taiwan, and China.